Annual Progress Report
CLEO 2011
Project
3.4 Scenarios of future soil and water quality in Sweden
Project leader
Berit Arheimer
SMHI, 60176 Norrköping, Sweden
e-mail: berit.arheimer@smhi.se
General Objective:
To produce high-resolution national scenarios with implication to acidification and
eutrophication in Sweden, i.e. future hydrology and future status of soil and water. The
scenarios will reflect impact of both climate and land-use changes, and will be
accomplished with uncertainty estimates.
Short description of activities 2011:
An automatic system has been established to produce and to quality assure the linkage
between climate model results and hydrological models (Fig. 1). The system will allow
quick processing of input data to a large ensemble of climate model results. Climateimpact assessment should be based on an ensemble of future climate projections,
representing different general circulation models (GCM), different emission scenarios and
different initial conditions in the climate modeling. The ensemble is used to illustrate the
uncertainty in the climate modeling whereby each member of the ensemble is considered
equally reliable. Each GCM is first dynamically downscaled, using the regional Rossby
Center Atmosphere (RCA) model, thereafter the data is bias corrected using observed data
and the distribution-based scaling method of Project 1.1. Down-scaled data from two
climate projections have been used to calculate future hydrology of Sweden, using the SHYPE model (Fig. 2).
The first simulation of climate change impact on environmental goals in CLEO was
performed for the nutrient load to the sea linked to eutrophication goals of the Baltic Sea
Action Plan (BSAP). The Balt-HYPE model was then used for experimenting with landbased remedial measures and future climate projections to quantify the impacts of these on
water and nutrient loads to the Baltic Sea. The results suggest that there is a possibility to
reach the BSAP nutrient reduction targets by 2100, and that climate change may both
aggravate and help in some aspects. Tough remedial measures are necessary both for waste
water treatment and the agricultural sector. The probabilities to reach phosphorus targets
were in general higher. For nitrogen, the impact of climate change was in the same order as
the expected reduction from remedial measures. Thus, climate effects need to be accounted
for in measure plans. Uncertainties in the model results are large, mainly due to the spread
of the climate model projections but also to the hydrological model.
An international scientific workshop on comparison of different soil-water models for
eutrophication management has been performed in the frame of Swedish IHP. The
Söderköpingsån river basin was then simulated by 7 models by teams from 5 countries.
Modelled values on water nitrogen and phosphorus concentration were compared with
observations for present conditions for each model. Then results from nine management
scenarios were compared, using all models. Model structure, performance and scenario
estimates were compared and discussed. Overall focal points for the evaluation was to
communicate to users how the model results can be applied, to increase the degree of
understanding and acceptance for scenario modeling, but also how uncertainties can be
calculated and managed. In a second workshop half a year later, the results were discussed
with representatives from municipalities, county administrative boards, water authorities,
and environmental protection agencies to facilitate decision-making in spite
of uncertainties.
Read more at:
http://www.smhi.se/svenskaihp
http://www.smhi.se/en/Research/scientific-comparison-of-water-quality-models-1.15864
Deliverables 2011:
D3.4.1 Scientific publication on different soil-water models performance and ensemble
modelling at various scales. Delivery month: 36, Status: on-going
D3.4.2 Technical infrastructure for automatic model simulation using ensembles of forcing
data, linkage between model concepts and storage of model results. Delivery month: 36,
Status: on-going
D3.4.3 Production of hydrological scenarios with variables to be used in Cluster 4 and in
subproject 3.2, where a set of surface waters concentrations will be constructed for each
effect scenario. Delivery month: 24/36, Status: on-going
Additional staff involved in project:
Johan Strömqvist, Kean Foster, Wei Yang, Jörgen Rosberg, Charlotta Pers, Joel Dahné,
Johan Sodling, Jenny Axén Mårtensson, Chantal Donnelly
Co-operation outside CLEO:
Water authorities in the Swedish WFD work
Bonus+ project: ECOSUPPORT
EU projects: ECLISE
Networks: Swedish IHP
Reports and publications:
Foster, K. 2012. DBS Tailoring System – an operators manual (version 1.0), SMHI internal
technical report
Donnelly, C., Strömqvist, J. and Arheimer, B. 2011. Modelling climate change effects on
nutrient discharges from the Baltic Sea catchment: processes and results. IAHS Publ.
348:1-6.
Arheimer, B., Dahné J., and Donnelly, C. 2012. Climate change impact on riverine nutrient
load and land-based remedial measures of the Baltic Sea Action Plan. Accepted for Ambio
Oral presentations:
IUGG General Assembly in Melbourne, 28 June - 7 July 2011
Oral presentation at the IAHS session H04: Assessment of water quality under changing
climate conditions
Chantal Donnelly et al.: Modelling Climate Change Effects on Nutrient Discharges from
the Baltic Sea Catchment: Processes and Results
Appendix:
Figure 1. Production chain when tailoring climate-model results to hydrological impact models.
The tailoring includes downscaling, bias correction and adjustments to catchment boarders.
3 MAPS (coming soon)
Figure 2. Future precipitation, temperature and water discharge for the country of Sweden.